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The 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV (Photo by Steve Fecht for Chevrolet)

General Motors Wednesday introduced the Chevrolet Bolt, the first long-range, plug-in electric car that real people can afford to drive.

Priced around $30,000 (after government rebates), the five-passenger Bolt has an electric range of around 200 miles, more than enough for families to use as their daily driver without fear of running out of juice. Most people would never need to recharge anywhere but home. But if you do, you can refill the battery to 80 percent of capacity in about 30 minutes.

I got an opportunity to drive an early production version Wednesday morning, before its official debut at CES, the huge consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, and it’s fair to say the Bolt exceeded my expectations. By a lot.

It’s peppy and responsive as you’d expect an electric car to be, and handles corners like a little rally car. Braking feels, well, normal, which is somewhat unique for an electric car. In stop-and-go traffic, you don’t even need to use the brake. Shift into low and it’s capable of one-pedal driving. Lift your foot off the accelerator and it stops. Touch the pedal again and you’re off.

The Bolt is cute – it’s designed as a small crossover SUV – but there’s an incredible amount of space inside, thanks to the design of the flat battery pack mounted beneath the floor and thin, sculpted front seats that give rear passengers extra leg room. Even a six-foot-two journalist who climbed in the back had plenty of head- and legroom. Families would have no trouble buckling three car seats in the back.

GM Engineer Josh Tavel and family in the Chevy Bolt

In the front, a “floating” instrument panel with a huge 10.2-inch-diagonal touch screen provides more knee space for the driver and front passenger and makes the car feel wider. And there are many clever storage spaces, including a deep well under a sliding armrest for a tablet device.

Behind the rear seat, the Bolt has a surprising amount of cargo space for a small car – 16.9 cubic feet – more than the remarkably spacious Honda Fit, the current small car benchmark.

2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV

“We were given a blank canvas – a rare opportunity with a unique platform to recast EV design for customers across the spectrum,” said Stuart Norris, the car’s head designer.

With the Bolt, GM’s goal was to take away all the excuses that people have for not buying an electric car: its range is limited, its performance is lacking, the design is goofy, it takes too long to recharge, it’s too expensive.

2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV

And they succeeded. The Bolt is a great little car that happens to run on electricity instead of gasoline.

More important, it’s GM’s ticket to the future of mobility. With its high-speed 4G LTE service from GM’s Onstar subsidiary, the Bolt gives owners access to apps and services that enhance and personalize the driving experience. Down the road, that data connection will be critical in the advancement of car-sharing services, which are rapidly growing in popularity. (GM just invested $500 million in one of them, Lyft).

By aggregating driving data collected from both shared and privately owned vehicles, the Bolt will get smarter every day. Owners will be able to get an accurate driving range projection, for example, based on the time of day, topography, weather and the owner’s driving habits.

“The Bolt is more than just a car,” GM Chief Executive Mary Barra said. “It’s an upgradeable platform for new technologies. This isn’t some science project.”